Meeting 3
Syntax
Constituency, Trees, and Rules
Constituent
Syntax is about the study of sentence structure
.
(1)
The students loved their syntax assignments. The statement that sentence (1) consists of a linear
string of words misses several important generalizations about the internal structure of sentences and how these structures are represented in our minds.
In fact, the words in sentence (1) are grouped into units
Constituent
The notion that the and student are closely related to one
another is captured by the fact that they are as part of a bigger unit that contains them, but not other words.
There are two different ways to represent this bigger unit.
One of them is to put square brackets around units. [the student]
The other is to represent the units with a group of lines called
a tree structure:
the student
Constituent
Constituent
: A group of words that functions
together as a unit.
Constituency is the most important and basic
notion in syntactic theory.
The “relatedness” is captured by membership in a
constituent.
Constituents don’t float out in space. Instead they
are embedded one inside another to form larger
and larger constituents. This is
hierarchical
Constituent
TP
NP
VP
D
N
V
NP
The
student loved
D
AdjP
N
his
assignments
A
Constituent
The child found the puppy
the child
found the puppy
the child found the puppy
constituent
Various linguistic tests reveal the constituent of a
sentence.
E.g. the set of words that can be used to answer a
question is a constituent.
“what did you find?”, the speaker might answer
“the puppy, not “found the”.
Pronouns can also substitute for natural groups. In
answer to the question “where did you find the
Rules and Trees
In generative grammar, generalizations about
structure are represented by rules. These rules
are said to “generate” the tree.
The rules are called
phrase structure rules
(PSRs) because they generate the phrase
structure tree of a sentence.
A tree diagram with syntactic category
Phrase Structure Tree
Three aspects of a speaker’s syntactic knowledge
are represented in phrase structure trees:
1. the linear order of the words in the sentence
2. the groupings of word into syntactic categories
3. the hierarchical structure of the syntactic
Noun Phrase
The simplest NPs contain only a noun (usually a proper noun [+proper], pronoun
[+pron], mass noun [−count] or a plural noun [+plural]). (John, water, cats)
Our rule must minimally generate NPs then that contain only an N. The format for
PSRs is shown below. We use X, Y, and Z here as variables to stand for any category. XP → X Y Z
the label “consists of” the elements that make up for the constituent the constituent
NP → N
This rule says that an NP is composed of (written as →) an N.
NP
Noun Phrases
There are many NPs (e.g., those that are [+count]) that
are more complex than this of course: a) the box
b) his binder
c) that pink fluffy cushion
NP → D N
This generates a tree like: NP
D N
Noun Phrase
NP → (D) N
Nouns can also be optionally modified by adjectives. the big box his yellow binder
NP → (D) (AdjP) N
Nouns can also take prepositional phrase (PP) modifiers
the big box of crayons
Noun Phrases
NP
D
AdjP
N
PP1
the
book
big
of poems
The NP constituent consists of four sub-constituents:D,
Noun Phrases
The [AdjP big] [AdjP yellow] box [PP of cookies] [PP with
the pink lid].
Adjective Phrases (AdjPs)
and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
the very yellow book
This phrase has only one [very yellow] constituent
modifying N.
This constituent is called an adjective phrase (adjP) AdjP → (AdvP) Adj
AdjP
AdvP Adj
Adv Yellow
Adjective Phrases (AdjPs)
and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
NP
D
AdjP
AdjP
N
the
book
Adj
Adj
big
yellow
Adjective Phrases (AdjPs)
and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
NP
D AdjP N
the book
AdvP Adj yellow Adv
Very
Adjective Phrases (AdjPs)
and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
Principle of Modification (informal)
:
Modifiers
are always attached within the phrase they
modify.
The adverb
very
modifies
yellow
, so it is part of
the
yellow
AdjP.
In “the big yellow book” by contrast,
big
doesn’t
Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
A very similar rule is used to introduce AdvPs:
AdvP → (AdvP) Adv very quickly
Adv P
Adv P Adv quickly adv
Head
The head of a phrase is the word that gives the phrase
its category.
E.g. the head of NP is the N, the head of a PP is the P,
the head of the AdjP is Adj and the head of AdvP is Adv. AdjP AdvP
head head AdvP Adj AdvP Adv
Head yellow Head quickly Adv Adv
If we take the AdjP to be the mother then its
daughters are the AdvP and the head Adj.
Since AdvP and Adj are both daughters of
the same mother then we say they are
Prepositional Phrases (PPs)
Most PPs take the form of a preposition (the head)
followed by an NP:
a) [PP to [NP the store]] b) [PP with [NP an axe]]
c) [PP behind [NP the rubber tree]]
Prepositional Phrase (PPs)
PP
P NP
Verb Phrases (VPs)
the category headed by the verb: the verb phrase (VP). Minimally a VP consists of a single verb. This is the case
of intransitives (V[NP __]):
VP → V
Amanda [VP left]. VP
Verb Phrases
Verbs may be modified by adverbs (AdvPs), which are, of course,
optional:
Amanda [VP left quickly]. VP → V (AdvP)
VP
V AdvP
left
Verb Phrases
Interestingly, many of these adverbs can appear on
either side of the V, and you can have as many AdvPs as you like:
Amanda [VP quickly left].
Amanda [VP [AdvP deliberately] [AdvP always] left
[AdvP quietly] [AdvP early]].
Verb Phrases
VP
AdvP AdvP V AdvP AdvP
left
Adv Adv Adv Adv
Verb Phrases
VP → (AP+) V (NP) (AP+)
Bill [VP frequently kissed
his mother-in-law
].
Bill [VP kissed
his mother-in-law
quietly].
Verb Phrases
VP
V
NP
AdvP
kissed
D
N
A
Verb Phrases
It is also possible to have two NPs in a sentence, for
example with a double object verb like spare (V[NP __ NP NP]). Both these NPs must come between the verb and any AdvPs:
I spared [NP the student] [NP any embarrassment]
[AdvP yesterday].
Verb Phrases
VP
V
NP
NP
AdvP
spare
D
N D
N
Adv
Verb Phrases
Verbs can be modified by PPs as well.
These PPs can be arguments as in
ditransitive verbs of the type V[NP __ NP
PP] (e.g., the PP argument of the verb
put
)
or they can be simple modifiers PP like
for
a dollar
below.
These PPs can appear either after an
Verb Phrases
a) Bill [VPfrequently got his buckets [PP
from
the store
] [PP
for a dollar
]].
Verb Phrases
VPAdvP V NP PP PP
got
Adv D N P NP P NP frequently his buckets from for
Clauses
A clause consists of a subject NP and a VP.
The label we use for clause is TP.
[TP[NP Bill ] [VP frequently got his buckets
from the store for a dollar]].
Verb Phrases
TPNP
VP N
Bill AdvP V NP PP PP got
A D N P NP P NP frequently his buckets from for
Clauses
TPs can also include other items, including
unsurprisingly elements of the category T (such
as modal verbs and auxiliary verbs).
a) Cedric
might
crash the longboat.
b) Gustaf
has
crashed the semi-truck.
we won’t treat these as verbs, the reason for this
will become clear in later chapters. Note that the T
in the TP is optional.
Clauses
A tree showing the application of this rule
TP
NP
T
VP
might
N
V
NP
Cedric
crash
D
N
Clauses
Clauses don’t always have to stand on their own. There
are times when one clause is embedded inside another:
[TP Shawn said [TP he decked the janitor]].
The clause he decked the janitor, lies inside the larger
main clause. Often embedded clauses are introduced by a complementizer like that or if:
[TP Shawn said [CP [C that ] [TP he decked the janitor]]]. We need a special rule to introduce complementizers (C):
TP
NP VP
N V CP
Shawn said C TP that
NP VP
N V NP he decked
All embedded clauses are CPs, whether or not they have
a complementizer. This means that a sentence like
Shawn said he decked the janitor will have a CP it even though there is no complementizer that.
Embedded clauses appear in a variety of positions. The
Embedded clause as direct object
TP
NP VP
N V CP
Shawn said TP
NP VP
N V NP
he decked D N
Embedded clauses in subject
position
TP
CP VP
C TP V NP
that worried
NP VP N
N V NP he decked
D N
the janitor
TP { NP/CP} (T) VP
The last revision we have to make to our
PSRs is to add the CP as a modifier to NPs
to account for cases like:
TP
NP VP
D N PP CP V NP The fact brothers
P NP C TP natasha about that NP VP
N
Bill N V NP he likes N
Relative Clauses
In addition to the CPs that modify Ns, there is another kind of CP
modifier to an N. These are called relative clauses.
E.g. The man (whose car I hit __ last week) sued me.
The underscore in the sentence indicates where the gap is_ the
object of the verb “hit” is in the wrong place, it should be where the underscore is. The corresponding to the gap we also have the wh-word “whose” and the noun ‘car”. These are appearing at the
beginning of the clause.
Relative clause actually appear in a different position than the CPs
that follow nouns like the fact.
It has to do with the relative position of the CP and the PP in the NP
Summary
CP
(C) TP
HOW TO DRAW A TREE
Bottom-up Trees
Bottom-up tress
1. Write out the sentence and identify the parts of speech: D Adv Adj N V D N
The very small boy kissed the platypus.
2. Identify what modifies what. Remember the modification relations. If the
word modifies something then it is contained in the same constituentas that thing.
Very modifies small. V ery small modifies boy. The modifies boy. The modifies platypus.
The platypus modifies kissed.
Summary
CP → (C) TP
TP → {NP/CP} (T) VP
VP → (AdvP+) V (NP)({NP/CP}) (AdvP+) (PP+)
(AdvP+)
NP → (D) (AdjP+) N (PP+) (CP)
PP → P (NP)
